what it brings is everything
by callmesandy
Summary: Tony Stark made a list after a thorough examination of the leaked HYDRA files. The information has him examining and changing his life. (Sequel to 'is big and so awake')


Warnings: mentioned murder of a child, Minor Character Death, past miscarriages mentioned

Notes: For the trope bingo spot free space. Not mine, no profit garnered. Title from leaving new york by r.e.m. Thanks so much a!

* * *

There's a kid in Montpelier, Vermont, absolutely brilliant. So self possessed that at ten they announced they were non binary gender. It went over so badly with their parents they were in foster care by age eleven. And the kid persisted. By the time Tony was checking on the kid, they had been in a great foster home with an awesome foster mom for two, nearly three years. The kid was thriving.

There was nothing much for Tony to do except wave the money wand and get the foster mom enough legal and financial help to formally adopt her ward. Anonymously, of course. That was the point.

He added new scholarships and grants to the foundation for gender noncomforming, non binary and trans kids to get the education they wanted, not stay in awful shitty schools or whatever it was they needed. More money thrown around, not helping the macro problems at all. But some kids were getting some benefit. It was something.

0

"This is your plan?" Tony looked around this Siberian nightmare. "I know. I already knew." On the screen, Tony saw his father, the shape of his forehead. Tony looked away. He refused to look back and see his mother. "Were you planning to surprise me? What kind of Rube Goldberg bullshit plot is this? All your plotting for this reveal? You're a twisted little fuck nut."

Cap whirled around, looking back for Helmut Nemo the evil stupid. Barnes said, "He's gone outside -"

"Time to go outside," Tony said. "Wait, one free hit, right? He did murder my mom." He whacked Barnes in the face and enjoyed that the force drove Barnes back. "Okay, done, let's find the bad guy."

He could see Cap processing all of it but Tony decided to push past caring.

Outside, in the snow, Black Panther held Zero up by the throat. Tony said, "I genuinely don't care if you kill him, and I support your vengeance quest totally. But that guy's bullshit plan has screwed up a lot of shit, and if we want to start putting it right, it would help if he's alive."

Cap said something much more eloquent and T'Challa put the idiot down, forcefully, but not fatally.

T'Challa said, "I will not let vengeance consume me."

"Awesome," Tony said. "We need to clear a few names now. I need your help to make these Accords bend enough that we're not locking up good people for trying to save the world in an utterly misguided quest."

Cap said," Maybe we just end the Accords and not bend them."

"That is not an effective plan," T'Challa said. "But I will help all of you."

"Thank you," Tony said. "We can't let a plan this stupid succeed."

0

Tony was in bed with Pepper, being the big spoon for once. It was probably good for his self-esteem. He rubbed her small belly. Amazing how fast they had managed that once Tony knew he wasn't shooting blanks. Which had really been his assumption for the longest time. He hadn't told Cap when he asked, so it was just Tony, Pepper, Happy, Rhodey and the AI that knew a baby was coming.

Pepper said, "Did you tell them how you knew?"

"Eventually," Tony said. "It was all idiotic, sound and fury, not the Shakespearean or Faulknerian, but plenty bullshit-ian the usual. I was mostly surprised Hill didn't tell them that she'd done the research. The preliminary research."

"She wouldn't tell them everything," Pepper said.

"Nope, not everything. But really, no update for Cap about letting people in on the secret of his homicidal mommy killing BFF? That is surprising," Tony said. "Do I sound bitter? I am, I know."

"That's why you have a therapist," Pepper said. "You know it was brainwashing."

"Of course it was, but also, my parents, you know?"

"Yup," she said. "But you had time to process."

So very much time. Months, even. Months of waiting to see if Steve would tell him now. Would it come up now? All the time working together, would it come up now? But he got it, he did. He had secrets, too.

Pepper said, "So you finally contacted Spider-man."

"Yup," Tony said. "I did that. Spiderteen is a great kid. Completely great kid."

Pepper said nothing. She patted his hand over her tummy.

0

"But really, it's great. Got most of the team back at the compound, Barton and Lang will serve very tiny sentences under house arrest. Minuscule sentences. Mostly for leaving the country and being naughty. Nothing else. Thank God for Wakanda, right? And the millions of dollars I've been spending in the last two years for political influence to modify these fucking accords into something decent. That's all."

His therapist, who was actually a fully super accredited psychiatrist with three PhDs and somehow immensely modest about it in a way Tony would never have been, said, "You're being funny. Are we going to wait an hour before you actually get to your feelings?"

"Are we?" Tony shrugged. "Probably."

So many PhDs and still a therapist said, "Or you could just say it now. Demonstrate growth."

"Doesn't sound like me," Tony said. "Growth would be nice."

He never mentioned the other part of Now Agent Hill's discoveries. He preferred to keep it close to the vest. He had enough issues to chew over in these weekly stab in the metaphorical heart sessions.

But he said, "Pepper's pregnant. That's a positive thing. I am happy about it. I'm happy about this growth in our relationship and our life."

"Congratulations."

0

There's a girl in Indiana. That's the one that got him thinking about lead poisoning and early childhood development. So much potential lost. Friday brought it up and Tony digested that news. He read study after study, he kept thinking about the things he couldn't change with money, couldn't wave away. There was only so much one billionaire could do about systematic forces in the world, in society that kept children from being geniuses. Or made geniuses only above average.

In Indiana, though, there's a girl who was raised by two loving parents even if they never made much money and couldn't keep her out of houses where sometimes she accidentally ate lead paint flakes. She was doing fine now.

Tony had set up grants for research and community organizing around the lead paint issue except it was part of so many issues. Sometimes the only place to live was one with lead paint and he would never have enough money to solve affordable housing in the state of Indiana, let alone the whole country or Canada. He might be able to do a province in Canada. Or one of the smaller, less populous states.

He toyed with starting with Wyoming. But there were a lot of things to worry about.

0

Rhodey walked with almost ease. The bionic legs needed some work, that was for sure. Rhodey said, "Just don't add racing stripes."

"No, I'm gonna make the whole thing light up," Tony said. They were talking quietly in the upper part of the compound. The currently in legal limbo part of the Avengers generally gave them a wide breadth. Tony appreciated it, mostly. A little. He preferred to only occasionally bite into confrontations. Sometimes he wanted to be the windshield, sometimes he preferred to be the bug, the one that flew away.

He shook his head. "No, the ideal is we make it light enough but workable, wearable under pants. Any pants you want. Leather ones, even. I remember how great you look in leather."

Rhodey said, "Are you keeping up with that Spider kid?"

"Yes," Tony said. "I'm all over it. We meet twice a week. I check up on his grades. I told him to tell his beloved aunt he's out superheroing it up because she will kill him when she finds out. He tried to quit robotics, I said no, no, no."

"That reference is so old, Tony, you're hanging with the youths, you need to update."

"I know, but it's a great song," Tony said. "I'm on top of it. Next week he comes up here and starts learning to actually fight and protect himself."

Rhodey was quiet for a long time. He finally said, "Is the kid on your list? The one you're hiding away in your lab?"

Tony smiled. "I'm not hiding it from Pepper." Which was important to say. "Are you Pepper?"

"That's not even a little bit of an answer," Rhodey said. "I know what the list is, too."

"Everyone underestimates your intelligence, I always say that," Tony said. "We're not talking about this. Back to your legs."

Rhodey shook his head. He clearly didn't want to talk about his legs either. Instead he wanted to talk about the Accords. He wanted to hear about everything Tony had been able to do to get the others out of legal limbo and still protect the fundamentals of the idea. Tony preferred that to talking about his list.

0

Another girl lived, now, in Vancouver, the Canadian one. She was a dancer. She'd been doing ballet since she was only four. She was great at it. Tony had watched too many YouTube and Facebook videos of her performances. She was very serious about it.

Her mother had died the same year Tony went in the cave. Perfectly innocent accident. It was perfectly innocent, Tony had gone over every report backwards and forwards. He didn't like accidents. But the ballerina had recovered. Her father had remarried, just last year. They seemed like a very happy threesome.

1

"Peter Parker, you are not allowed to quit band," Tony said.

Peter turned from the table where he had laid out his webspinners. "But what if you need me for something?"

"Then I'll call," Tony said. "But in the meantime, you are going to be an actual facts teenager who is better than all of us and manages to balance education, life, and this crazy spandex gig. So you only go out swinging a few nights a week and you check in with Happy every time you do it and you still do your fifteen year old things and then once a week you come here."

"Next week I get to meet the other Avengers," Peter said, with his happy big smile.

"You get to meet some of the Avengers, a group you are not part of, yes, next week, when you'll start training so you stay alive."

"That sounds so awesome," Peter said. "When do I do the Spider-man part if I'm at school and doing band, and robotics and decathlon and homework and whatever else you think is normal teenage life? Because I can do more than that."

Tony sighed. "I know. But after school, after your activities, there's a nice slice of night in there. Except for Sunday night when you come here and once a week when you don't have something to do. We talk, we improve your suit, you hone your game. It'll be awesome. And you tell your aunt, by the way."

"No way," Peter said. "She'll freak out, she will die from worry. She would never let me do this. She'd freak out, I'd freak out, it would be bad."

"She's going to find out. You're bad at this."

Peter said quickly, "No, I'm not. What do you mean?"

"You're pretty bad at lying. And you are not good at hiding things from people you care about," Tony said. "She's going to find out, no matter how much you think you can prevent it. And she'll be hurt you lied to her."

"Maybe," Peter said. "Or maybe she won't find out."

He couldn't convince Peter even though Tony was right.

Peter did the work. Happy forwarded all the messages Peter left him, all the copious lengthy messages. There are so many messages. Tony spoke to Cap about helping Peter. "Since you know about the super strength thing."

Cap started to make that face about Peter's age and Tony didn't roll his eyes. Tony actually said, "Now, imagine you got powers at fifteen. Because you would be this kid."

Rogers paused and even smiled a little. "That doesn't make it right."

"Sure, let's just not help the little genius with superpowers who's also monumentally stubborn, he'll be fine while we're on the path of right," Tony said. He did roll his eyes that time. "Maybe just show him how to punch and not kill someone?"

"Fine," Cap said. "Fine."

When Tony went downstairs, they were both unbelievably battered and Peter was flat on his back, breathing hard. Tony said, "Don't one of you have school tomorrow? Like, shouldn't show up covered in bruises school?"

"I'll heal, Mr. Stark," Peter said. "This has been great."

"Will you heal by the time Happy drives you home to May? Or, you could just tell her."

"You keep saying that," Peter said weakly.

He let the kid help him in the lab. He was smart, really smart. It was like working with Bruce, only significantly younger, more references to memes Tony didn't understand, and a complete lack of sexual tension.

The kid confessed to his bestie discovering that he was Spiderman. Tony pointed out that it could have been May, so Peter should tell her. Peter continued to ignore Tony's excellent advice.

He was an older fellow with a pregnant fiancee so sometimes he went to bed early. Naturally, one Friday when he was settled in nice and comfy with some white noise cooking competition on the big screen, he got the alarm that Pete's parachute had deployed and the kid was in a lake, drowning. He scrambled to his office and sent a suit.

The kid was very excited about his alien tech arms dealers. "You know who this sounds like a job for?"

"The Avengers? Should I brief Cap?"

"It's darling that you said that. No," Tony said. "Sounds perfect for Black Widow and Mr. Falcon, two people with lots of experience and years of training. If they need help, they can call you or Vision. Promise."

"Awesome," the kid said.

Tony called Nat immediately and started the transfer of the film from Pete's suit. "If you don't start on this soon, the kid will put his adorable puppy snout all up in it and I don't think he's ready."

Nat said, "I'm definitely more worried about your pet teen superhero getting involved than people using Chitauri weapons. Can't wait to meet him."

"That sounds so threatening," Tony said.

Of course, the next time the kid came to his internship, he also had a Chitauri energy core he was just carrying around.

Peter slunk back to Tony's lab; clearly Nat or Sam had lectured him a lot about randomly picking up glowing things. Tony said, "Got the suit?"

"Will I get it back?" Peter looked twelve as he gingerly handed it over.

"Of course," Tony said. "What I'm going to do is turn on your AI. Your very own gal Friday. A voice of wisdom that will tell you when you randomly pick up alien explosives."

Peter winced and said, "Cool?"

"Very cool," Tony said. "Don't you have some drumline competition this weekend?"

Peter relaxed and laughed. "I'm not in marching band. I play the viola, it's more like orchestra than band. And this weekend is decathlon."

"Right, orchestra concert in two months -"

"You don't have to come, Mr. Stark, I'm not any good, I'm like fifth chair out of five. It's not like I'll ever be great at it."

"So what? Not everything you do needs to be a job."

"Late stage capitalism ruins us all," Peter said, like it actually meant something.

Tony frowned. "When your friend Michelle says that, she sounds smart. You don't. But don't quit viola. And do well on your decathlon this weekend."

Apparently Peter did well at the decathlon. He came to the lab straight from his trip and could not shut up. "It didn't even have to go to sudden death or anything, we did so well. Liz is such a great leader. She quizzed us and watched TED Talks to be even better, bond as a team. We all snuck into the pool and she was so pretty - "

"Did you two make out?"

Pete blushed. "Yes. Just kissing, a little. I mean, we kissed. Last night. After we won, we were all up late and talking and then it was just me and her. She said I was the smartest person in the school. She's the prettiest person in school. Seriously."

"Wow, was that your first kiss or something?"

Peter looked away and shook his head. He said, "No. No, I was ten and I was at science camp. With another ten year old. Nothing awful."

Something about the way Peter said it and wouldn't meet his eyes along with the usual context clues made Tony decide to phrase his next comment carefully. "I bet your friend Liz was much better at kissing than whomever you were getting all innocent smushy face with."

"Yeah," Peter said, smiling. "She definitely was. She's really great. I'm going to ask her to homecoming. Monday. Unless I lose my nerve and then it'll be Tuesday."

"That's a great plan, sounds very age appropriate." Tony sounded like a condescending ass but he could live with that.

The kid was probably the smartest person in his school and maybe, sometimes, the smartest person in the compound. Tony'd had very little to add to the basics of his web formula, he just did variations. Peter had first just run his hands over the War Machine armor tentatively, reverently, but then he really got to work. They worked together well.

Tuesday night, Peter called directly, practically hyperventilating. "It was Liz's dad! Liz's dad tried to kill me!"

"I heard," Tony said. "If you hadn't handed it off, he probably would've killed you."

"Maybe not," Peter said, a little wounded.

"Yeah, you're tough. You could handle yourself. Betcha someone else would've gotten hurt. Some civilian," Tony said.

"Maybe," Peter said. He sounded smaller. He inhaled and said, "I can't believe my girlfriend's dad tried to kill me!"

Apparently some kissing and very light petting over one night made you boyfriend-girlfriend in Peter's mind. Tony's exes numbered in the hundreds by that rubric. "How's she doing?"

Pete exhaled. "Not great, I guess. She definitely didn't want to talk. I guess they're taking her house and all the money. She did say she's probably moving to Portland, Ore-gone -"

"Orygun is the correct pronunciation. Also tell her to call the river Will-AM-ette, not Wilmet," Tony said. "They get upset about that."

"Got it," Peter said. "Did you talk to Miss Natasha and Sam? Did anyone get hurt?"

"Just a few bangs and scrapes," Tony said. "Good press for them, frankly. The Accords allow us to do these nice, local problems. And no one got badly hurt, and we rounded everyone up. I hear your girlfriend's dad blamed it all on me. He's looking out for the little guy."

"How, that makes no sense, Mr. Stark. He was selling all those weapons, those people were stealing from us little guys. They destroyed Delmar's, that's not some million dollar business," Peter said.

"Thanks for the defense," Tony said, lightly.

1

"You knew who he was the moment you saw his picture," Pepper said. She was rubbing her six months pregnant belly. She looked around the bedroom, all of their old family pictures. "You knew."

"Basically," Tony said.

Pepper sighed. "I don't get your reasoning here. Can you explain it to me without any self-pity?"

"It's not self-pity," Tony said. His jaw ached. It was an incidental pain to growing old. "I told you before we saw any pictures. I'm not taking some kid away from his, her, or their happy home. That's not about my feelings, that's about not being a damned asshole."

"A little bit of self-pity," Pepper said.

"Fine," Tony said. "Fine. We're moving on from this, now."

"You think that works," Pepper said with a smile.

"I'm hoping it does," Tony said. "Because of your compassion for me and my tender feelings. And we're building a relationship of respect and love and you being a nice person to me and me being a nice person to you by telling you my boundaries. Here's a boundary." Tony gestured at an actual picture of Peter he had in the room.

"For now," Pepper said. "He's going to hate you when he finds out you didn't tell him."

"Probably," Tony said. "You're violating my boundary."

They went on a babymoon. Pepper called it a ridiculous term. "We're not even married yet," she said. "And why do we need a name for a vacation we're taking? It's like push gifts. If you give me something and call it a push gift, we will break up. We will, Tony."

"Heard and received," Tony said. "No push gift. Is that no gift when the baby comes or just gifts are okay but don't call them push gifts."

"Gifts are okay," Pepper said.

2

There was a problem with the kid's suit. The problem was that the kid wore it in a fight with something either alien or mutated that nearly killed the kid and definitely left the suit a shredded mess. Tony didn't bring the suit with him on the babymoon. But he was tinkering on a tablet he'd made for this issue.

Pepper said, "What are the odds that Peter will actually not go out superheroing? Pretty slim, I bet."

"Almost zero," Tony said. "That's why I'm working on it."

It wasn't enough. Happy called him because of course, some asshole who still had some of Liz's dad's weapons went on a rampage in a building right near Peter's school and set the place on fire and Peter told his aunt he was Spiderman, finally. Then immediately went swinging off in his old homemade sweats, though at least he had his upgraded webshooters with him.

Peter managed to get everyone out of the building and defeat the bad guy with the only real damage to Peter and the building. May called Happy because she had Peter's phone and Happy took care of the kid. And called Tony.

"Go," Pepper said, smiling. "I'm going to pick out my gift for having a baby."

"Art?"

Pepper smiled and nodded. "Very expensive art. We're going to hang it in the new place."

"Done," Tony said. The new place was only new to Pepper, it was one of the many places Howard had owned in Manhattan. One of the few that hadn't been sold.

Tony jetted home and flew in his suit when he got close enough. He found Peter in the medbay. He was curled on his side, an IV in his arm. He'd been burned and stabbed and alien lasered so he looked awful. Tony gripped the little bit of Peter's forearm that wasn't bruised. He said, "You up yet?"

"Been up," Peter murmured. "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Tony said. "Well, be sorry. But there's only one thing I'm upset about, guess what it is?"

"Should have called you?" Peter's eyes were closed and his little face all scrunched up in pain.

"No, should have called help. Help. Like Captain America, who beats you up every two weeks. Black Widow or Sam," Tony said. "They would have come to help in a heartbeat. They live for this stuff."

"I didn't think of it," Peter said. "That would have been a good idea." Peter inhaled. "May's really upset."

"You don't have to do any of this alone," Tony said. "You don't have to, Pete. I'm going to make you repeat that once you're not curled up in agony. You don't have to do this alone."

Peter mumbled something. Then he finally said, "Is that a scene from Good Will Hunting? I've seen that movie."

"It's a great movie," Tony said. "How about them apples, right? And that one was it's not your fault, not what I said. I said you don't have to do this alone. It's also not your fault, but I feel like you don't need that message."

"We should talk about the math some time," Peter said. He mumbled something more.

Tony said, "Try to rest, kid." He gestured and dimmed the lights. "Did you already talk to Aunt May?"

Peter nodded. Tony said, "So rest. Rest rest rest. Someone's right here if you have trouble sleeping or you have a nightmare."

"I'll be fine," Peter said, clearly.

Tony headed out to the lobby. Aunt May looked furious. She said, "He's Spiderman."

"I told him from day one to tell you. Day one. I didn't think he should hide it from you. I thought you should know," Tony said.

"Good work," May said. "He should, he throws himself into this and he's going to die someday." She started crying.

Tony frowned and patted her shoulder. It was unbearably awkward. He thought we're all going to die. Even he knew it wasn't the right thing to say. So he said, "It's because he's a good kid. He's a good man, almost a man."

"He's a good guy," May said, sniffling. "You're right. But I'm still so angry. I have to be angry at someone."

"Sorry," Tony said. He stopped patting her shoulder. "Sorry."

"Wait, you'll see how being a parent is," she said. "Sorry, Peter told me your fiancee is pregnant."

Tony felt his anger sudden and under his skin. He said, "You don't know me well enough to know I'm not, that I don't have children." He sighed, everything expiated. He saw in his head a three year old grinning in a picture and her autopsy report. He said, "Sorry. That was rude. This is my first, first time with a baby."

May looked at him with compassion in her eyes. It was awful. She said, "People think Ben and I never wanted kids, but actually I had three miscarriages."

"That sucks," Tony said. "I don't mean to keep saying these things to Parkers, but you should tell Pete. I swear, I once heard him say that you two were being super nice even when you never wanted kids. Or he said it to the suit."

"That's frightening," May said. "You record his suit? That's, that's creepy."

"This conversation is the worst," Tony said. "Let's hope Peter never does this again."

"He definitely will," May said.

Tony waited all through the night. He looked at the auction pages Pepper sent. She was interested in women painters from Africa. It was going to be quite a contrast to the sixties pop art decor of the old new place.

May was in with Peter and then she came out. She was clearly exhausted. She said, "I know there's a place to sleep around here."

"Friday'll set you up," Tony said, gesturing up.

Friday chimed in with directions and Tony went into Peter's room. Peter was mostly asleep but he kept waking up, staring wildly, and then he fell asleep again. Peter sighed and then said, "I can't sleep."

"Bad dreams? Or pain? A little of both?"

Peter inhaled. He said, "Just not sleepy." He sounded tired.

Tony said, "Why are you watching Good Will Hunting? Isn't that an old movie for you?"

Peter closed his eyes. He said, "Matt Damon's hot when he's young."

"Eh, in that movie, I'll take Ben Affleck," Tony said. "Not now."

"Back tattoo," Peter murmured. "Not a great one."

"You gotta be careful with those," Tony said. He exhaled. "You did good, though. You really proved yourself."

"Thanks," Peter said. He fell asleep again.

2

There was a boy in Oakland. Expensive house, expensive schools. Raised by loving grandparents who apparently hadn't even told the kid he was adopted. Never came up, Tony would bet. Maybe it did and they avoided it. This boy loved music more than anything. He played multiple instruments and even wrote music. It was pretty good.

Tony listened to it sometimes, or the kid playing incredibly difficult modern pieces all by himself.

2

Tony's super qualified doctor of the mind said, "What would you say your biggest problem is?"

"I'm just too good," Tony said.

She smiled.

"I don't know, I have a lot of problems," Tony said. "Some I'm absolutely working on solving, some that are basically impossible to solve. So many things."

"Wake up in the morning, what's the first thing you worry about?"

"Pepper, the baby coming, Pepper, Peter, Rhodey, Pepper, what's Bruce doing right now? How do we deal with these fucking Accords, Peter, fourth quarter r and d budget, climate change, Pepper, Peter, baby, baby, baby. Basically. Then I think about coffee," Tony said.

"What do you worry about Pepper?"

"Pepper's not a problem to solve, I just worry that she's not okay, that something will happen to her, that she won't love me anymore, that I've ruined her life. Perfectly normal worries, I think. Plus we're seeing a couples counselor, so, me and Pepper is kind of covered."

"Fine, can we talk about Peter?"

"No," Tony said. "How about Rhodey? Can we talk about my issues with Rhodey?"

"Sure, I'll let you redirect that. But we're going back to Rhodey and your father."

Tony sighed. "Sure. Challenge accepted."

2

Pepper was a real trooper in the delivery room. There were lots of doctors on hand. And nurses. And two doulas, because Tony thought it would be a good idea. Pepper made it through and then she was holding their daughter and then she handed the very tiny human to Tony. It was astonishing.

It was also a blur. A big long blur that lasted for about a week. Baby humans required everything and there was no sleep even though Pepper was exhausted and had just given birth. He was definitely in love. With Pepper and baby Morgan.

People kept coming by and Happy scanned all of them for weapons or germs, including every single person except Rhodey. "I don't trust anyone with that kid," Happy said. "Complete protection."

Peter came in after Happy practically doused him in disinfectant. "I know how teenagers are," Happy said darkly.

Peter said, "Wow, baby. I'm not familiar with babies. I watched some YouTube videos and Ned has a lot of cousins so I actually practiced with a seven month old yesterday. Seven months old can hold up their own head, though."

Tony plopped Morgan into Pete's arms. "That's great, I have to pee. Don't drop her."

When he came back, Peter actually looked pretty comfortable. He was very careful with the baby. "Hey, hey, Mr. Stark. She's a great baby. But I can change a diaper if you need. I also practiced that. I bet it's easier with a little baby like Morgan, though, less squirming."

"Probably," Tony said. "Wait a sec." He got out his phone and took a picture. "Okay, back to your diapering skills."

"I don't know that I'd say skills."

Cap was about it, too, though Wilson was the only one Tony and Pepper would actually trust with the baby when they weren't in the room. Natasha found the baby befuddling and Cap was just too big, the man was enormously muscled and tall and it looked like the poor baby would just be engulfed. Tony's therapist said that was not a great reason but Tony didn't give a shit.

It took him a month to start taking time away from Pepper and the baby. Even then, he only managed a few hours.

2

Oakland boy could be a little snooty in his YouTube channel. Not that Tony ever stopped watching and the music was still amazing but the kid was so very fifteen and unaware of his privilege. That's how Peter would phrase it, Tony thought. He wished there was a nice way for the kid to have it beaten out of him. Maybe Tony could anonymously suggest a good book in the comments. That would go over well.

2

They resolved the Accords. Even Wanda was willing to sign. It helped immensely that Tony had possibly maybe helped remove Secretary Ross from office and any shreds of power. It wasn't Tony's fault that Ross had more than a few dirty fingerprints all over the leaked SHIELD files. It was a little Tony's fault that he put a few investigative journalists on the right track. There was a lot to be found in those files.

Not the parts he'd wiped out of existence with a little help from Vision but Tony was protecting other people. Ross didn't have access to Vision because Ross was a bad person and Vision wouldn't help him.

So they were allowed to investigate all national incidents, had to notify when things went international and didn't have to register everyone. Peter was protected and no one was going to jail. Steve was happy, everyone was happy.

Morgan was great, the cutest person alive under the age of ten. He would come home from the endless irritating meetings and take her adorable tiny self into his arms. "You're safe," Tony said, over and over again. "You're safe."

2

One day, Thor came back. Asgard had been destroyed, he was on Earth to make himself a new home. He'd also brought a few even more alien aliens, including a blue one with prosthesis. "This is Nebula, a fantastic warrior with a will of steel," Thor said. "She was on Sakaar with us. She came after crippling her father, the evil Titan Thanos."

"Good for her," Tony said.

"Thanos had planned to end the universe, collect all the infinity stones. But this brave warrior stopped him before he could acquire them."

Nebula said, "My sister helped. We came together to end my father's march of destruction across the galaxy. We left him in crippling, neverending agony. Also a talking tree and a small forest animal helped us. Quill, a little. Very little. He barely helped. If you ask him, he'll say it was all his plan but he's an idiot."

"What a fun family tale," Tony said. "Thor, you know all the best people. Except for your brother, not the best, don't want him here."

"He has changed," Thor said. "But I understand. I will keep him out of sight."

"Oh, okay, that's your big plan, sounds like it will be successful."

Thor grinned. "When do I get to see the little one?"

"She's two months old, she doesn't really travel. Come to New York. We can get the whole band back together."

They did have a party. Peter came and Tony let him bring the best friend, another adorable genius. They were both awestruck by Thor, of course, because he was a lot to take. The new haircut alone upped his attractiveness an exponential amount, which didn't seem possible.

Thor held Morgan like an expert. He looked over at Peter and said, "He's a good lad."

"Very good kid," Tony said. "He's gonna be great, someday. Not today, today he's just young."

Thor smiled and rubbed Morgan's perfect cheek. She sighed. Thor said, "An excellent lad."

2

Tony sat up and said, "I"ve definitely entered the stupid phase of this."

"Which part of this are referring to?" Pepper looked up from breastfeeding. "There are just so many this this could be."

"I'm now officially as stupid as Peter was not telling his aunt," Tony said.

"I completely agree with that," Pepper said. "Please don't hold back on our account."

"Yesterday, he called me just to tell me he thinks he's in love with his friend MJ. He called me."

"He wanted horrible romantic advice?" Morgan made a tiny sneeze and Pepper started patting her tiny back.

"Apparently," Tony said. "He just wanted me to know. Just really felt the need to share."

Pepper said, "You're not going to tell him."

"Not today," Tony said. "Can I have my little baby girl?"

Pepper carefully handed the girl to Tony. He was so thrilled just holding her. She was old enough to move and have it have meaning. She made him unbelievably nervous. He was constantly anxious around her. But he felt optimistic about his life, the whole world because of her.

3

Peter was holding Morgan and making nonsense noises. Tony said, "You can, uh, talk to her in her regular voice with your big boy words. It helps her language development."

Peter smiled. He said, "I know. I know. But it's fun. I'm just trying to make her laugh."

There was a huge clang. An alarm was going off in the tower. Peter started to stand and Tony said, "Stay. You stay here."

"But I can -"

"Yeah, you are the best person in this entire tower to make sure my daughter here is safe. You'll protect her from anything, right?"

Peter nodded solemnly. Tony cursed that the nanite suit wasn't ready yet but he was in the tower, he had suits that came to him in seconds.

The alarm was easily dealt with, actually. Helpfully, Rhodey was also there and between the two of them it was all of two minutes. Five minutes of clean up and he was rushing back to the nursery.

Peter had built a wall from his webbing and a few elaborate structures inside that. Peter said, "Everything okay?"

"Completely okay," Tony said. "You should probably dissolve all this. But I like it, we should recreate these plans. Where's the squirt?"

"I made a, like, crib and hammock," Peter said.

Morgan giggled.

The solvent didn't even smell, Peter had made great strides in the lab. "I was totally ready," Peter said. "I was ready to break some heads."

"Good plan," Tony said. "I appreciate it."

They had a semblance of schedule, him and Peter. Peter came to the lab two afternoons a week and he checked in after Spider-manning every single time.

There were still big bad events. Ex Stark Industries employees who thought they deserved more and turned out to be more creative after being fired than they ever were before. Minor alien invasions. The usual bad guys. As Vision said, strength brings challenge.

Peter was getting really good at being Spiderman. It was impressive. He also kept getting stabbed and set on fire and thrown against buildings. Apparently Peter was taking his need to be bandaged up to his girlfriend. "Yeah, MJ was really helpful. She just doesn't freak out like Aunt May. She's super chill. She still gets worried about me, but she's super chill."

"Are you having kinky nurse sex with this girl?"

Peter's eyes went wide. "No, no, we are not. We are not at the level at all. Not there. No sex."

"Well, when you get there, wrap it up, you know?"

"Oh, God, no, I am never talking about this with you," Peter said. "Can I go play with Morgan? I feel much happier talking with her."

"She's very smart, I know," Tony said.

3

One girl lived in New York City. Staten Island. She had wealthy parents and an easy life. She seemed smart but she was mostly a very normal rich kid. Everything about her was above average and nothing was extraordinary. It was nice to see she was doing well. He barely checked up on her. She was fine.

4

"So, possibly, MJ and I had sex -"

"You're not sure if you did?" Tony tried not to laugh. They were on a dirt field outside the compound. Tony was attempting to teach Peter how to drive. Peter insisted he didn't need to drive in New York City. Tony said he probably wouldn't spend the rest of his life every day of his life in New York City.

"No, I'm sure. We did. We did. It was great." Peter said. He braked badly and Tony sighed in irritation.

"You don't sound like it was great," Tony said. "She wanted to do this, right?"

"No, of course, she absolutely wanted to. She was very vocal about wanting to, we had a lot of conversations about consent. I promise. And I wanted to, also. I guess, like, people talk about sex like it's mindblowing, hugest thing in your life and it was just, you know, nice. Very nice," Peter said. He did a better job braking this time.

"Sex is a rite of passage. It's one people put a lot of weight on. A lot of weight. But there are a lot of rites of passages, too. Some are gonna mean more than others," Tony said. He was flailing but he did know Peter was probably getting some fucked up messages about lots of things. Maybe, probably from Tony.

"Right, exactly," Peter said. "I don't mean it's anti-climatic, but it was sort of anti-climatic. Because it was great but it's not like I felt like a man afterward. I don't think MJ felt like her whole life was different afterward, either. She specifically said she didn't."

"There's some difference afterward, it's like, you've done this now. You know how that feels. First kiss, first blowjob, first handjob, first hit of mdma -"

"I have not had some of those firsts," Peter said.

"Good," Tony said. "Which goes to my point that not all firsts are things everyone will experience. Like, here's a first you don't have yet, first time you killed someone. Right?"

Peter nodded. "Not personally, not that I did."

"First time you feel responsible for someone's death, I'm sure you've experienced. Because you're you and you think you have the weight of the world on your shoulders," Tony said. "Which it's not. Remember? It's okay to ask for help."

"Right, right," Peter said. "But you've done that."

"Yup," Tony said. "You turn for shit. Let's do this again."

Peter said, "Thanks. Thank you."

"Don't ruin my car," Tony said. "When you have your license for six months, then maybe I'll let you drive with Morgan in the car."

"I can wait longer for that," Peter said. "It would freak me out. Are you saying you want me to babysit more?"

"She likes you," Tony said. "I like when she's happy."

"She likes a lot of people, Mr. Stark," Peter said.

"Well, you're not her mom or Thor, but she's very fond of you," Tony said.

"I like her a lot, too," Peter said.

"She's even more charming than you," Tony said.

4

The ballerina got leukemia. Tony sent money to her local hospital. He made sure visiting doctors with expertise went to where she lived. It wasn't like part of his various charities weren't devoted to curing cancer. Curing cancer was a big thing. But they weren't there yet. He tried not to check on how she was doing too often. It was too much to think about.

5

Tony couldn't keep being stupid.

He invited Peter to the Tower. He debated warning someone besides Pepper but it felt like this was more between the two of them. Peter sat down and looked cautious. Tony enjoyed what he expected would be his last smile from Peter for a while.

Peter sat across from him at the small dinner table. Tony put down his file and tablet. He said, "Just to cut to the chase." Tony inhaled. Exhaled. Said, "I'm your biological father."

Peter blinked and frowned. "What? What are you saying?"

"God, you knew you were adopted, right? I'm not, that's not new information for you, right?"

"No, I knew," Peter said harshly. "I knew. It was all on the up and up, it was legal."

"Completely legal," Tony said. "Okay, okay. After Ultron, as a going away present sort of, leaving my employment, Maria Hill did a close search of the leaked Hydra files for me. Information about me. Especially the kind I might want closed. She found one part." Tony looked down at his fingers. "She told me Bucky Barnes killed my parents. While he was completely brainwashed so we just blame Hydra for that. It wasn't his fault. I'm not inviting him to the wedding, even though Wakanda reprogrammed him. But it's not his fault."

Tony said, "Back to the other thing she found. Obie, Obadiah Stane, at the same time he ordered my murder, also ordered the murder of the two children of mine he knew about and hid from me. I don't, I don't think either one even tried to contact me. Not important."

"He killed my parents," Peter said, low and constricted.

"Yes, he did. And your birth mother, and the mother of the other one and the baby girl. They probably tried to kill you, too," Tony said. "Had someone from Hydra do it. Not Mr. Barnes, not him. We don't know who exactly. When Stane died, Hydra wiped a lot of their records relating to him. Actually, Pepper and I killed him, Obie."

"Okay," Peter said.

"Maria could only find the records that there were two kids and that people were killed. There were records about the girl. She was three years old." Tony could still remember every single picture and video he'd been able to find of her. Patricia. Not a name he would have picked. She had a smile like her mother's.

Tony kept talking. He pushed the tablet forward and set up the info about Peter's birth mother. "So with that data, Friday and I started searching. We found your, your birth mother first."

"I saw the posts her sister made, the ones on the adoptees board," Peter said. "MJ looked for it. I never contacted her."

"Yeah," Tony said. Tony barely remembered her. She was a dancer, she'd done a number of Broadway shows. He met her at a bar. It was one night. Then she moved to Pennsylvania and had the kid. Wisely, in Tony's estimation, she'd never contacted Tony. Naturally, Hydra ran her over because Obie wanted Stark Industries.

"So once we were sure who the mother was, we did a search using various factors," Tony said, waving his hand. "It was a list of six. But I knew it was you as soon as I saw the picture."

Tony opened the file. It was one of his family photos. He pointed. "This lady in the middle is my mother, on the right is her older brother, left is the younger."

"Wow, he looks a lot like me."

"Ninety five percent facial match," Tony said. "Genetics are weird. I've removed every picture of Frederick Carbonell off the internet and a few other servers beside. I never met him. Both of my mother's brothers died before I was born." Tony pointed at the older brother. "Died of the flu when he was twenty three, a few months after this picture. Frederick, on the other hand, was drafted and despite my father using all his pull, ended up in Vietnam in 1966. Shot and killed on his second day in country. Broke my mother's heart. She had pictures of her brothers up everywhere in the houses we lived in."

Peter reached out and took the picture. He waved the tablet closed.

Peter said, "You knew from the moment you saw the pictures. Before you even came to my apartment."

"I promised myself when I started on this, I wasn't going to disrupt anyone who had a family they loved."

"I just have May, Ben had died," Peter said. "Right?" He sounded confused and angry.

"Yes," Tony said. "But you have family. I didn't say it was the best reasoning. Maybe I should have just driven over. But I'm a very disruptive person. I didn't want to impose."

"Impose," Peter repeated. He shook his head, frowning.

"This is all up to you," Tony said. "Whatever you want to happen. Pepper and Rhodey know, no one else. You, uh, feel whatever you want. I'm here."

"Okay," Peter said, standing up. He was still holding the tablet and the picture. "Can I, I can still see Morgan, right? Even if I don't want to ever fucking see you again?"

"Yes," Tony said. "Call Pepper."

Peter marched out and somehow managed to take the elevator forcefully. "Better than I expected," Tony said to the empty room.

5

The ballerina died. No amount of money or intervention could change that. Tony knew that. Things happened and sometimes there was nothing you could do to stop them. It wasn't growth to accept the horror of every day awfulness. It was just getting old. Tony threw more money at cancer cures and treatment and none of it changed that a sixteen year old wouldn't dance again.

And Peter hadn't talked to him for a month. Maybe that would get better.


End file.
